He knows all about the art of building winning teams, how to deal with the pressure of the media and, of course, the secrets of time management, more commonly known in football circles as “Fergie Time.”

Ferguson retired last May after claiming a 13th English Premier League title with United — the 49th and final trophy of an illustrious 39-year career in football management.

It’s a record of unparalleled achievement, but barely a year after the Scot stepped down it appears there is one gaping hole in the Ferguson management repertoire — successful succession planning.

Twenty years ago today the world stood by while 1 million Tutsis we slaughtered in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Then, the world pledged those famous words—never again, the same words spoken after the Jewish Holocaust. Here we are twenty years later and the words never again seem to carry little weight. Our international system continues to value state sovereignty over humanitarian intervention and while its does, we continue to have spurs of genocide like that in the Darfur region of Sudan or more recently in the Central African Republic (CAR).

In the past ten years, with increased pressure from the human rights community, there has been a push towards the adoption of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). This doctrine rests on three pillars: (1) a states responsibility to protect its citizens from genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; (2) the international community’s responsibility to assist states in…

You would think that, having stayed in Cairo for much of the last year, I would feel closer than in New York or Boston to the Syrian catastrophe taking place only a few borders away. But it doesn’t work that way. Egypt has enough of its own problems: massacres, mass arrests, one dictator on trial, another one running for president; these aren’t as replete with murder but they fill the mind as blood fills the brain after a hemorrhage, and expunge thought. You imagine Aleppo for a second and flinch: There’s enough not to think about without not thinking about that.

To be sure, Syria is here, in the form of thousands of refugees who have fled the killing. (The UN says there are almost 150,000 in Egypt; some estimates run double; in any case, Lebanon hosts many times…

Fact: A blender could easily be the most utilitarian and useful kitchen tool yet.

Case Study: Strawberries, banana, chocolate chip ice cream, yoghurt, milk, whey protein, and peanut butter can go in one mixer and voila! Food! And not only food, but an easy-to-drink, flavorful meal.

Caveat: You can only eat meals processed by a blender for six weeks. Yikes. Sorry dad. A broken jaw will do that to you.

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I’ve been assisting my dad this week in finding the best variety of smoothie-shake-blended meals that I can find. Of notable help has been Jaws Wired Shut, a clever name for a blog serving as a tool for people with eating issues. Nice.

In this process, I’ve been fiddling around and experimenting – though in truth, it hasn’t been very hard, having had worked for a smoothie shop one college summer and a string of…